In the assembly of circuit packs, a plurality of components are automatically inserted into apertures formed through a printed wiring board (PWB). Oftentimes, there is a need to automatically mount a hybrid integrated circuit (HIC) on the PWB. A typical HIC includes a printed circuit formed on one or both major surfaces of a substrate which may be made of ceramic material, and a plurality of elongated fragile leads mounted along opposite lateral edges of the substrate which communicate with the printed circuit. A plurality of chip carriers are then mounted on one or both of the major surfaces of the substrate. The size of the HIC and its fragile leads require special handling in mounting it on the PWB which usually results in manual manipulation by an operator. In an automatic assembly line, the manual mounting of HICs onto the PWB reduces the efficiency of the automatic assembly line and increases the cost of operating such an assembly line.
Consequently, there is a need for a technique which would automatically move a plurality of HICs to a work station and which would enable a leading HIC to be separated from the other HICs so that it may be subsequently removed from the work station and mounted on a PWB.